Common Sense: Using Common Finals to Measure Postsecondary Student Learning - Very little postsecondary student learning can be measured in ways that allow comparisons to students at other colleges or to fellow students in different sections of a class taught by different instructors. Lacking that measure, it's difficult to know and improve instructor quality. Using exams in two developmental algebra courses at Glendale Community College, the author shows how similar exams can yield data on instructor quality. He concludes by recommending departments administer common final exams in multi-sectioned introductory classes. He points out that university systems could help coordinate such efforts across member institutions. He also suggests administrators directly confront faculty concerns that common finals will be used to evaluate them. (Matthew M. Chingos, Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, April 2013)...

A Framework for Measuring Career Pathways Innovation: A Working Paper - In the process of developing a common understanding of what high-quality career pathway systems look like regardless of targeted industry, occupation or design, the authors provide information on the types of metrics that can be used in career pathways and how they can be used. Many, they say, will be useful for continuous improvement. (Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success at CLASP, February 2013)...

Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education: Panel on Measuring Higher Education Productivity: Conceptual Framework and Data Needs - The panel authoring this report was charged with the task of identifying an analytically well defined concept of productivity for higher education and recommending practical guidelines for its measurement. The objective was to construct valid productivity measures to supplement the body of information used to (1) guide resource allocation decisions at the system, state, and national levels and to assist policymakers who must assess investments in higher education against other compelling demands on scarce resources; (2) provide administrators with better tools for improving their institutions’ performance; and (3) inform individual consumers and communities to whom colleges and universities are ultimately accountable for private and public investments in higher education. (National Research Council, May 2012)...

Changes in Postsecondary Awards Below the Bachelor's Degree: 1997 to 2007 - This Statistics in Brief presents changes in sub-baccalaureate awards in the decade between 1997 and 2007,using 2002 as a midpoint. It describes changes in the number and types of awards conferred. The report also examines changes in the types of institutions conferring the awards and differences in awards by gender and race/ethnicity. These results can serve as a baseline against which to measure future changes. (Laura Horn and Xiaojie Li, Thomas Weko, National Center for Education Statistics, November 2009)...

Promoting Engagement for All Students: The Imperative to Look Within - Continuing its goal of helping schools determine how to do a better job of educating college students, the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement reported that transfer students are underserved, nearly one in five college seniors and 25% of freshmen say they frequently come to class without completing the assigned reading, and online learners report deeper learning experiences than classroom-based learners. Some 380,000 students in 722 four-year institutions were surveyed; more differences were found within individual institutions than from one institution to another. (National Survey of Student Engagement, Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, 2008)...

New Leadership for Student Learning and Accountability: A Statement of Principles, Commitments to Action - The primary responsibility for achieving excellence falls on colleges and universities themselves. To that end each should: develop ambitious, specific and clearly stated goals for student learning; gather evidence about how well students in various programs are achieving; and provide information about its basic characteristics, clearly communicate its educational mission and describe its strategies for achiving its educational goals and their effectiveness. (Association of American Colleges and Universties, Council for Higher Education Accreditation, 2008)...

Engaged Learning: Fostering Success for All Students - This report examines National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) findings and general themes, national benchmarks, key engagement issues including compensatory effects of student engagement for certain groups of students and how schools and stakeholders are using NSSE results. (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006) ...

Two Columns on Postsecondary Accountability - Should College Students Be Tested to Hold Institutions Accountable for Student Learning? discusses the need for accountabiliy at the postsecondary level and how Academic Learning Compacts will make Florida college degrees more meaningful and comparable. Colleges are looking at new ways to assess student learning and institutional effectiveness discusses why an NCLB-like approach to postsecondary accountability is not appropriate, proposing instead the Collegiate Learning Assessment. (Steve Uhlfelder and Stephen Klein, Council for Aid to Education, 2006) ...